TURKEY "DRESSING" {November Kid's Craft}

As a testament to how far behind I am, here is my Thanksgiving craft post. 

I copy a basic turkey outline (that I found in an old "The Mailbox" magazine) on brown construction paper, and then my kids and I have a discussion about the double meaning of "dressing a turkey". Then they are set free to decorate their turkeys however they please using scraps I've collected. 

This is one of my favorite projects of the year. Sometimes, the rows of identical kids' crafts hanging in the hallway can be depressing. But this project allows for individuality and true creativity...and the kids blow me away with how dang creative they can be. 

Here are a few of my favorites:

Please note the karate uniform, belt, Asian symbol.

The eye patch.

The dark mask and super hero cape.

Some even got together and made turkeys to go together. I love her pom poms and his shoulder pads and helmet...

Don't miss the stubble on the robber's chin and the bag of stolen goods slung over his shoulder. The policeman has a nightstick and a badge. 

Someone was still stuck on Halloween. The little vampire suit, red cape, and special hair do just kill me. 

This turkey's flowered hat and pretty parasol accessorize her beautiful summer dress.

The jeans and the hunting cap are perfect. 

Lady in pink.

And this turkey...I'm not sure. I stared at it for a long time trying to figure it out. Curly hair...sweat band...short shorts...gaudy sparkles...

The best conclusion I could come to was a Richard Simmons turkey...?? Ha!

Sorry about the lousy blurry pictures taken in our dark hallway. Hopefully, this still gives you some fun ideas for next year!

RON WEASLEY PILLOW

This was my Christmas present to The Beck. My sister is in love with the Ron Weasley character. I thought I would share the idea for any other Harry Potter fans out there. 

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When I saw her pin a similar pillow of him on her Pinterest wish list board, I figured it would be easy enough for me to piece together. 

All the fabric came from Wal-Mart clearance bins, my own scrap collection, and a decorative pillow that doesn't match my house anymore. I made the scarf out of soft fleece to give it texture and help it stand out from the rest of the pillow. 

It took me over an hour to make the one pillow, but I imagine it would be a lot faster for those who actually know their way around a sewing machine. I'm still learning.

OUR CHRISTMAS TREE 2012

We drove to Green Canyon, Idaho, to get our tree this year. That area has the spruce trees we prefer. 

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of us finding, cutting, or dragging the Christmas tree to the truck. Instead, I have fifty-seven pictures of Moose playing in the snow. 

It was his first time seeing any significant accumulation and he kind of freaked out about it. 

Let me fully impress upon you the point that Moose LOVES the snow. 

Dad, look! Snow! Everywhere! I love it! I must run! I must prance! I must feel the wind through my ears!

Mom! Look at me! I love you! And I love the whole world! Pet me! Never mind! I must run speedily through this glorious snow!

So, yeah. His utter joy was highly entertaining.

And that's why our Christmas tree post is all about our very large puppy.

And his beautiful golden eyes. 

But anyway. Back at the ranch...with Moose exhausted in his backyard kennel, we dragged in our thirteen footer and set her up. We felt the need to take advantage of our new vaulted ceilings. 

Good thing for the ginormous ladder, is all I have to say. 

Fully decorated with "The Grinch" playing in the background and 600 drops of sap waiting to be scrubbed off the wood floors. Becca kept saying it looked like a Dr. Seuss tree. I'm cool with that. I think.

Glowing in the dark. It was at this point that I decided to forego the white ribbon next year. It just looked like I toilet papered my Christmas tree.

At the after Christmas sales, I searched for a birch wood-looking ribbon I had seen, but ended up instead with a pale blue burlap ribbon for next year. Pale blue, pale green, and white is the color scheme I have been trying to gather and pull off for years. But my love for red keeps sneaking in and stealing the show. 

A full tour of my Christmas decorations will be coming soon! Until then, here are a few inspirational photos I found to help me with my new color theme next year...

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HALLOWEEN COSTUMES {2012}

I didn't get super creative with the costumes this year. I was just too tired to care. We also bought pumpkins that never got carved and planned decorations that never got put up. I use the excuse that I'm conserving energy for Christmas. 

We went to a Halloween party mid-October and I just pulled out last year's bumblebee costume. Our new neighborhood friends never saw the costume last year anyway. Then I tried to think of something for Andrew that would correlate with a bee. 

A beekeeper? Winnie the Pooh? A honeypot? In the end I found it was easiest to turn him into a bird. 

I had a T-shirt made that said: "Tweet. Tweet." I had Andrew tape craft feathers all over himself. And I planned to make him a baseball cap with a beak, but bought him an Angry Birds hat instead. (Feeling lazy, remember?)

In the end, it was this hat that confused people as to what we really were. They kept saying that I was a bee and Andrew was an Angry Bird...missing the entire "Birds and the Bees" concept entirely. Oh well. 

For school, I couldn't be the bee again.  Last year's kids would remember. So I went further back in time and pulled together my student costume for a second time...again spending the entire day clarifying that I was not a gangster, but a backpack wearing, teacher's pet pest.

I'll try again next year. 

MUMMY ACTION WORDS {kid's craft tutorial}

So excited to share what my third graders did last week to display in the office. 

I wanted our display to have a fun Halloween touch to it, but still be educational.

I found a tutorial on how to make garden wire mummies on Pinterest, and the rest just kind of clicked and hit me like a lightning bolt. Mummy action words!

I found the wire at K-Mart in the garden shop for about 6 bucks. We needed two packages for the whole class.

Each mummy's framework was molded into the basic outline of a man.

Then I used the cheapest Wal-Mart muslin I could find and ripped it into inch-wide strips.

With an occasional dot of hot glue, we wrapped the bodies tightly with the fabric. 

We decided our mummies needed googly eyes too.

Then the class brainstormed action words they might demonstrate with their mummies. 

Their creativity blew my mind.

They were so excited to bring in all of their props from home.

Then we arranged them in the display case for the whole school to enjoy.

And enjoy they did.

This I know because the glass doors are always covered in heavy fingerprints. 

I don't thinkmy kids will ever forget now that verbs are action words. 

Just enjoy the other examples...they were all so cute I had a hard time weeding any out!

Dance.

Hang.

Swim.

Ride.

Sit.

Love. 

(Hugging a sheep?)

Hide.

Climb.

And my favorite: escape. 

We put this mummy on top of the display case instead of inside it. :)